A Productive Day At The Library

What better way to spend Good Friday than to relax with my first Wedding magazine (very exciting!), baking some fairy cakes and an apple crumble using some of my Grandad's home-grown apples, and to have a quick flick through the lovely books I got from the University's library yesterday.

I found some beautiful books on the French style, books specifically for cafe and coffee shop designs, and interior design as well as visual merchandising and retail design.

After a few hours of carefully selecting the information I wanted to photocopy, I decided to bring a couple of books home - 'The French Cafe' and 'Drawing for Interior Design', both of which have proven to be so helpful and inspiring. They'll both really help with my design ideas for Lou Lous Cafe.

I think I've fallen in love with the French country side and have become more inspired by small cafes and coffee shops than I ever thought possible!

A Fashionable Fairy Tale

I just wanted to tell you about a wonderful book I received just yesterday from my lovely fiance for Easter.

As you may or may not know I have a thing for pretty books. Yes I do love a good romance or mystery novel but my most pleasurable reading experiences are when the book is full of pretty words and pictures!

For example, a book I will treasure forever is a book by Gisele Scanlon called 'The Goddess Experience - Custom Made for You'

My special Easter present is a very similar to book to The Goddess Experience in the way it is illustrated and focuses on fashion. It's title is 'Christian Lacroix and The Tale of Sleeping Beauty' and is exactly what it says on the cover! It's a memoir of Christian Lacroix's life and fashion accomplishments within the story of Sleeping Beauty. It is beautifully illustrated by Christian Lacroix himself and really puts the magic and fairy tale into fashion!

You can read more and purchase it here, I strongly recommend it if you too get very excited about pretty books!

Pre-Photo Shoot Fitting

With the sun shining and not a single cloud in the sky I woke up really happy after finishing my final garment ready for the photo shoot the previous day.


I travelled to my lovely friend and model's house today with my outfits all folded and ready to be tried on. Nervously, I arrived hoping and praying that my trousers and shorts would fit as I really thought I'd made them too small. Every time I looked at them the waist seemed to get smaller and smaller!


Thankfully the trousers, shorts and tops all fit absolutely perfectly! The only problem was the shirt dress I've made - I hadn't added enough shape at the hips and it could only be fastened so far down. This is a small problem but I have a solution for the photo shoot - I'm going to have the model wear the shorts undernieth and even though the shirt doesn't fasten all the way down, with some clever camera angles and model positions such as sitting down etc. the problem will be solved!


I have all the accessories and clothes now sorted. On Thursday i'm meeting with my first year student assistant to discuss hair/make up plans and gather any other things needed such as hair spray, bobbles and clips.


Now all I need to do is round up some image inspirations and I'm all set for Monday's shoot on a beautiful farm in the village I grew up in.

Beautiful Cafe and Coffee Shop Images

Here are some more images I've found while canoodling around on the internet. Beautiful, inspiring, delicious!

A Little Bit of Display Inspiration

Meeting Follow Up...

After a very successful meeting, it looks like I have found myself the most perfect work experience, leading into a wonderfully creative and exciting permanent job! I'm being hired for paid experience on the current re-decorating and re-visualisation of Lou Lous Cafe to work alongside an experienced window dresser and gain some valuable experience. If all goes well, which I'm very confident it will, I'll be taken on as the permanent window dresser for the Cafe because the experienced window dresser will only be working with Lou Lou's for a certain amount of time. It will then potentially be my job to keep the window displays and internal decor/design up to date and new throughout the year. The meeting couldn't have gone better, I have a very exciting future ahead of me, and it is even better that it's with a company that is so up my street! My next job is, after some communication with the window dresser, to generate a range of ideas and mood/theme boards to show them at our next meeting on the 21st of May. Today is a super Saturday, now to begin cutting out my trouser fabric!

An Exciting Day

How beautiful it is outside for such an exciting day.

Today I'm meeting up with my mum and we are both going to Lou Lou's Cafe ( http://www.loulouscafe.co.uk/ ) in Sadlergate, Derby to meet with the manager to talk abut plans for window dressing their beautiful cafe.

This is potentially my first real taste of window dressing and visual merchandising, and i'm really looking forward to it. This actually came about through Twitter so it proves that it is definitely worth tweeting away to local people and businesses!

I'm really lucky to have been considered or this opportunity as Lou Lou's Cafe is somewhere I know I am going to love, it is completely my style - high end, vintage, quaint and chic, and it also sells tea, coffee, cakes and other delicious food.

I'll let you know how our meeting goes!

Once I get home my plans are to go over my trouser pocket pattern and re-shape and to then cut out my fabric ready to begin sewing my final pair of trousers ready for my photoshoot in just over a week. Today is going to be a sunny, exciting, happy and busy Saturday!